Imaging devices are frequently used in many aspects of business, industry, and academic endeavors. The term “imaging,” as used herein, should be interpreted broadly to include any process for producing a copy of a document onto paper, a computer screen, an electronic image, or the like. Examples of imaging devices include printers, facsimile devices, copiers, scanners, display monitors, multi-function peripherals (MFPs), imagesetters, platesetters, filing devices, web publishing devices, and so forth. Documents that are sent to a printing device for printing are sometimes referred to as “print jobs.”
Printers (one kind of imaging device) are used with computers to print various kinds of items, including letters, documents, pictures, etc. Many different kinds of printers are commercially available. Ink jet printers and laser printers are common among computer users. Ink jet printers propel droplets of ink directly onto the paper. Laser printers use a laser to print. Many imaging devices can generate scanned image data. For example, some imaging devices include scanners, which can scan a document to provide scanned image data. It is also possible that an imaging device will be able to read scanned image data from a storage device. There may also be other ways in which an imaging device may be provided with or otherwise obtain scanned image data. Copiers and facsimile devices are also commonly used imaging devices.
Current imaging systems, unfortunately, suffer from a number of limitations. For example, some individuals who would like to create an image, such as a photographic image, from image data either do not have a computer system to do so or do not have the skill set to load digital images on to a computer system and print them. These users, instead, are limited, for example, to viewing images on a digital camera screen or sending the images to a commercial printing service.
In addition, an individual may wish to image a plurality of images on a single sheet of imaging medium (e.g., photographic paper) to “preview” the images. Frequently, an individual may wish to do so without taking the time to load all the images onto a computer system and format the images for printing, even if a computer system is available to do so.
Accordingly, benefits may be realized by improved systems and methods for imaging multiple images on a single sheet of imaging medium without the need for separate processing of the images by a driver residing on a computer system. Some exemplary systems and methods for imaging multiple images on a single sheet are described herein.